Responders

My heart has heard you say, “Come and talk with me.” And my heart responds, “LORD, I am coming.”

Psalm 27:8

In our relationship with God, our position is always that of responder. We never have to engage in an activity or a ritual to get his attention because his attention never wanders from any of us. Before time began, he had already settled his heart on you and laid the groundwork for your salvation.

When you and I are drawn in God’s direction, we might feel as if that’s our own instinct moving us in that direction. When we decide to call to him, it might feel like our idea. When we find ourselves inclined toward him, we might feel as if we are seeking him out. But in reality, every time we have an impulse to pursue the things of God, we are responding to his invitation.

Would it take the burden off you if you knew that you don’t have to woo God, because he is wooing you? Would it lessen your anxiety to know that God is calling you to pray and that he is not calling you to pray to air? He is not inviting you to call on him in vain.

The inclination you feel toward God right now, in this very minute, is God calling you. Right now, God’s Spirit is saying, Child, come talk with me. I’m here for you. All you have to do is respond.

Right now, if you answer yes, you will find his open arms waiting.

When I was a little girl, I loved my grandpa Dick. He lived a few hours’ drive from us. When we drove into the driveway of his house, he would always be in the front yard waiting. I would run to him, and he would pick me up and twirl me around in his joy at seeing me.

That’s how God responds to you every time you turn his way. Arms outstretched, ready to twirl.

Father, I respond to your love. Here I am.

Turn around and believe that the good news that we are loved is better than we ever dared hope, and that to believe in that good news, to live out of it and toward it, to be in love with that good news, is of all glad things in this world the gladdest thing of all. Amen, and come Lord Jesus.

Frederick Buechner(1926–), American minister and author